OBLOMOV — Mighty Cosmic Dances (review)

OBLOMOV — Mighty Cosmic Dances album cover Album · 2005 · Melodic Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
adg211288
MMA Reviewer's Challenge: September 2016

Though on the surface it may conjure up the kind of spacey imagery that is associated mostly with certain brands of atmospheric black metal act, which is only further enforced by its title, Mighty Cosmic Dances (2005), the debut full-length album of Czech act Oblomov shows itself to be a very different kind of black metal release. The synths used on the album do sometimes sound spacey, but it's most notable in the short intro and outro tracks than anywhere else, as they are used somewhat sparingly.

While Oblomov are usually described as being somewhere between a melodic black metal and melodic death metal band, I find them to be much more the former than the latter. Unlike other black metal artists that invoke a spacey motif, these guys favour a largely direct form of riff-driven song-writing that initially offers up little by way of surprise after the intro track is out of the way. Mentality Failure and Redefinition of the Past are both solid enough melodic black metal songs that are pretty much staples of the genre at its most polished. I find them to be listenable but they don't really provoke any kind of wow factor either.

Then everything changes.

The track goes by the name Lost Between Emotions and with it Oblomov show that they can be so much more as an artist. Folksy, and even a bit experimental sounding with more of a noticeable blend of both black and death metal growls it really sounds as if the band stepped things up more than a single gear. Unfortunately this newly shown adventurous side begins to recede again in the following track Starsend, though the band do throw in a saxophone solo there. But for those few minutes in Lost Between Emotions especially Oblomov proved that they can be something special within the black metal scene. Both Nostalgic Idealization and Dreamworks also show off some more interesting parts, but for the most part Mighty Cosmic Dances comes across as very standard melodic black metal fare.

Mighty Cosmic Dances is a solid debut album overall but also the kind that mostly serves to display the group's future potential rather than realising it straight away. While I'm not blown away by it I'm intrigued enough by the album that I want to hear more from Oblomov.
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Unitron wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Good review, I think the album's mix of standard melodic black metal and adventurous tracks works well, it gives the listener nice surprises.
adg211288 wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Mostly because it was so different and unexpected.
Nightfly wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Looks like we have similar views on the album Adam though interesting to see that it was Lost Between Emotions that stood out more for you.

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